The 10th Victim

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite films of all.
Review: A brilliant movie based on a superb story by Robert Sheckley. This is sci-fi as it should be: depicting the future as theme & variation on today's manias & rituals. From the "legalized hunt" which has replaced traditional warfare to the "Club Masoch" to the roadside "sex & relaxation" parlors to the parents hidden from the state behind a false wall to the dress & music & settings, this movie not only rings penetratingly true but is boggling in its inventiveness. I first saw it in 1965 (in Oakland California) & I have to say that it was my first "1960s consciousness-raising experience". All these years I've treasured my two VHS copies, one to lend out, one for safety, so I'm really pleased that it is finally back in print.

Rating:
Summary: RUNNING (WO-)MAN
Review: A curiosity has just popped out of the cellar of Anchor Bay : THE 10th VICTIM, an italian movie directed in 1965 by Elio Petri. Adapted from a short novel of Robert Sheckley by the well-known screenplay writer Tonino Guerra, THE 10th VICTIM presents a Marcello Mastroianni with blond hair and an Ursula Andress with blond skin. Amusing.

The action takes place in a near future in Rome, Italy. In order to prevent wars, governments have invented " The Big Hunting ". The players must win 10 times to gain the right to leave with a million dollars prize. In this game, to win means to kill the hunted if you are the hunter or to discover and kill the hunter if you're the hunted. A slight pre-RUNNING MAN flavour, isn't it ?

THE 10th VICTIM is more a parodical and satirical comedy than an action movie and presents at least one scene deserving to stay in our memories, the first scene involving a masked Ursula Andress dancing and slapping the faces of the "Masoch Club" male audience before killing her adversary in a very stylish manner.

If you like italian comedies or a smart satire of the television, religion or our political institutions, the movie is certainly worth a look. If, like me, you are an amateur of B movies of the sixties, THE 10th VICTIM is a must have.

Bonus features include an english dubbed version, the italian version with optional english subtitles, the theatrical trailer and an incomplete filmography of Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. Great images and sound.

A DVD zone discovery.

Rating:
Summary: THE 10th VICTIM
Review: An early forerunner in the futuristic "legalized-killing-as-TV-entertainment" genre, The 10th Victim lays the groundwork for many subsequent films including Roller Ball, The Running Man, and most recently Daniel Minahan's Series 7: The Contenders. Briefly summarized: in the 21st Century Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress are two all-star assassins pitted against each other in "The Big Hunt," an international game of legalized murder in which a score of 10-kills awards the victor a prize of one million dollars. What sets this film apart from the others is not so much the plot (as while it may be the original in concept, its followers certainly succeed better in overall craft and more pointed satire) as the permanent aesthetic time/date-stamp of 1960's camp. The 10th Victim is a 60's version of the future, in the very best sense. It's a future full of awesome color schemes, ultra-cool music, great furniture, swanky pads, and characters that just ooze with sexual energy. The gem of this film is an opening sequence in which Andress dances around her ninth victim in a hipster club, fashionably slapping the men in the audience with cool and choreographed abandon before mowing down her adversary with bullets fired from a gun hidden in her bra (a gimmick later ripped for the Fembots in Austin Powers). And while the film offers a couple of other moments that approach the brilliance of this opening, its full potential is never realized -- things are not pushed nearly far enough. My biggest complaint: the alligator death chair catapult gizmo is never put to full effect, though perhaps I'm just yearning for the very thing this film means to comment on - more bloody spectacle. All in all it's definitely worth seeing, though you might supplement it with a healthy dose of Mario Bava's Danger Diabolik for good measure.

Rating:
Summary: Wild '60s Thriller
Review: I first saw this film on TV when I was in junior high. It's definitely one of the greatest '60s films ever made. Set in a future where the Pope is American, people get their kicks by participating in an assasination game. Ursula Andress is one of the best in the game (mostly due to her bra gun). The soundtrack and the production design are as outrageous as the action. It makes Austin Powers movies look like The O'Reilly Factor.

Rating:
Summary: Wild '60s Thriller
Review: I first saw this film on TV when I was in junior high. It's definitely one of the greatest '60s films ever made. Set in a future where the Pope is American, people get their kicks by participating in an assasination game. Ursula Andress is one of the best in the game (mostly due to her bra gun). The soundtrack and the production design are as outrageous as the action. It makes Austin Powers movies look like The O'Reilly Factor.

Rating:
Summary: Be the First to Sneer
Review: I had never heard of "The Tenth Victim," and purchased it largely because it was directed by Elio Petri, whose "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion" I greatly admire. One of many mid-sixties High Camp exercises (including other films like "Modesty Blaise," and "Arabesque," and television shows like "The Avengers") "The Tenth Victim" nonetheless has an edge to it that viewers familiar with Petri's other work will recognize.

The conceit here is that society has learned how to cope with violence by legalizing and regulating murder through a televised spectacle called "The Big Hunt." Ursula Andress is on the verge of becoming a "decathalete," that is, someone who has successfully killed ten victims and who will be rewarded for her final kill with one million dollars. A blonde Marcello Mastroianni is her intended victim, but as Andress sets him up, she finds herself falling for him.

Or, at least in theory she does. Because the tone of the film allows nothing so simple as straightforward emotion. Everything is an excuse for deadpan, cynical irony, kinked up and fetishized with high style fashions and attitudes. "Victim" is practically the definition of chic, but Petri, a Communist, is hardly presenting these Voguish postures as innocent fun. There's a bite under the silly surfaces. No matter how sleek the images, the whole thing leaves an acrid aftertaste.

In fact, "The Tenth Victim" is obviously a critique of the kind of film of which it is itself an example: superficial, violent, in love with commodities, sadistic and irresponsible. It is thus grimly appropriate that Anchor Bay should promote it as "The Original Sexy '60s Cult Classic." Clearly they and many potential viewers think of this as a Camp vehicle to which all knowing PostModernists can feel smugly superior.

Do so at your own risk. You may find yourself the real joke.

Rating:
Summary: Occasionally amusing
Review: I'm a big fan of films dealing with socially sanctioned violence set in the future. The 1960s and 1970s saw a bunch of movies that fit this category, movies like "Rollerball," "Soylent Green," and a dozen others. It's interesting how many filmmakers see the future as a bleak, nihilistic place where humanity has little hope for a happy life. Perhaps it had something to do with crises of the times. One of the worrisome themes in the 1960s and 1970s was the threat of global overpopulation. Paul Ehrlich wrote his doom and gloom book about the dangers of too many people and too few resources, "The Population Bomb," in 1968. The Italian film "The 10th Victim," proves that this concern was in the air even earlier. I wonder why the western world suddenly adopted such an attitude at this particular time? Did it have something to do with attempting to overcome opposition to new methods of birth control, in particular the pill? Or was it the start of what would become a dismal economic reality in the 1970s? Who knows? Whatever the case, Anchor Bay decided to release "The 10th Victim" on DVD a couple of years ago, about the time I first learned of the movie. I recently tracked down a copy and gave it a watch.

In the world depicted in this film, an out of control birth rate requires the authorities to take drastic steps to prune back the demand for such necessities as food and water. It's decided to create a game televised around the world, a game where contestants volunteer to kill ten other people over the course of a few years in the hopes that they will win the whopping sum of a million dollars. The rules of the game prevent wide scale anarchy by placing limits on how and when the assassinations can occur. A player does not, for example, simply run outside and mow down ten people. Instead, a computer system contains the files of all contestants and randomly pairs off contestants. In some instances, a player is a target. After awhile, if they stay alive long enough, they become the hunter. Moreover, certain places around the world are off limits to killing, such as the headquarters of the company that runs the game. If you murder someone in one of these zones, your game and your life become forfeit. Sounds like fun, right? Just like any other human endeavor, some people are better at killing under these rules than others. Two of the best players, Marcello Polletti (Marcello Mastroianni) and Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress), garner a lot of attention with their antics. Meredith manages to gun down a target in a most, ahem, unusual way at the beginning of the film.

Polletti seems weary of the whole game, though. His relationship with his wife has soured in recent months, and when she leaves him she takes all of his stuff. Personal problems aside, Polletti knows he must continue playing the game; he really has no choice in the matter, actually. If he refuses to find out who is hunting him, he'll die rather quickly. Predictably, Caroline Meredith is the one assigned to ending Polletti's life, leading to lengthy scenes where the woman attempts to ingratiate herself into Marcello's good graces. Why doesn't she just pop a pill in him and be done with it? Because a tea company signed a contract with the beautiful assassin that will pay off big time if she can lure Polletti in front of a camera before delivering the coup de grace. In short, this company wants to turn Meredith's final kill into a live television commercial complete with product placement. As Marcello and Caroline test each other's wits, the countdown to the kill draws ever closer. Unfortunately, the two complicate matters by falling in love. Will Caroline Meredith succeed in winning the one million dollar bounty? Will Marcello discover just how devious his foe really is in time to save his life? Will you care?

The answer to the last question depends greatly on how much 1960's European cinematic cheese your system can handle. Expect a lot of VERY '60's set pieces and costumes in this film. There are so many horribly dated visuals going on this movie that I kept expecting Goldie Hawn and Arte Johnson to caper on camera. That club and dance scene in the opening frames alone left me wondering just how people survived that decade in one piece. "The 10th Victim" is so awfully dated that it's almost impossible to focus on the plot, a plot that unfortunately goes nowhere after the first twenty or thirty minutes. Why did the filmmakers decide to spend so much time on Polletti's marital woes? Repeatedly, this subplot pops up in ways that detract from the larger narrative. And while I liked the underlying theme to the whole sun cult thing, i.e. Marcello playing on his fame as an assassin to make more money, this subplot didn't help the film in any substantive way. The conclusion to the film is unsatisfactory yet predictably European: what was that explosion of flowers supposed to signify? That love and death are intimately linked? Again, who knows?

I probably wouldn't recommend "The 10th Victim" to most people. Mastroianni fans will definitely want to own a copy, although I thought his performance was horribly stilted and uninspiring. Andress fans (and there are Andress fans) will also wish to pick up this disc, even though her turn as the dangerous Caroline Meredith could have been done equally well by any big name actress of the time. Too bad they didn't get Sophia Loren to play the part. As for me, I'm going to stick with Heston's "Soylent Green" histrionics and Jimmy Caan's rough and tumble demeanor in "Rollerball" in the foreseeable future. Ciao!


Rating:
Summary: Ballistic Bossoms
Review: The Italians really did 1960's camp the best. I mean, what is campier than Ursula Andress chasing a man around in a lavender, backless pant suit, while brandishing a pistol? A killer bikini top? A rest, relax and sex stop on the side of the highway? A cult of sunset worshipers in caftans on the beach? The cinematography and locations are so stylish. Rooftop jazz bars in the blaring sun, minimalist interiors decorated with giant, blinking eyeballs, New York's financial district, pre-World Trade Center and Rome and the Vatican shot from a helicopter. Death and fear, what could be funnier?

Rating:
Summary: 10th Victim
Review: This movie is what I call one of my "guilty pleasures" and when I discovered it had come out on DVD I had to get it. I first saw this in 1966 and although time has marched on it still is a joy to watch. Sometimes it's not because a DVD has 5 stars and excellent audio/video but because it's a personal favorite. If you agree go ahead,indulge yourself-oh,yea, try watching with the english subtitles on for subtle differences. Now let's see if the powers-that-be can manage the release of "Blow-Up"

Rating:
Summary: This isn't camp. This is hip.
Review: Who wants to be a millionaire? Don't answer trivia questions. Just kill 10 people before they can kill you! This is one of the few movies I know that perfectly evokes the era of the mid-1960s (despite the fact it is set at some undefined future date). I have loved it since first seeing it thirty or more years ago. Yes, this is where Mike Meyers stole the gun bra joke for Austin Powers, but this is social satire not pop culture sendups. (Literacy is evidenced by collecting rare comic books. In Italy people still believe in family enough not to turn their parents in for disposal. There's no shooting in restaurants.) At the same time as it is laugh out loud funny, it is also very very hip, in the best 60s sense. And am I the only one who has never been able to get the theme song from this film out of his head? Finally, I'm very pleased to see this film in Italian, even if my Italian doesn't extend beyond a few Paolo Conte songs. The old dubbed version (the only version I've previously encountered) did away with at least a couple lines of dialogue (if the subtitles are to be trusted) that I suppose the censors didn't like, plus no end of other dialogue just because that's how they dub movies. The hunt game computer in the Italian version speaks in a voice both so menacing and goofy that it reminded me why I once hated computers. And there is also at least one in-joke about Marcello Mastroianni clearly expunged from the dubbed version.